Nearby star has 7 "Earthlike" planets

TRAPPIST-1 is a star that’s 39 light years away from us. The journal Nature reports that it has seven warm, Earthlike planets orbiting it. From Washington Post : The discovery, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, represents the first time astronomers have ever detected so many terrestrial planets orbiting a single star. Researchers say the system is an ideal laboratory for studying alien worlds and could be the best place in the galaxy to search for life beyond Earth. “Before this, if you wanted to study terrestrial planets, we had only four of them and they were all in our solar system,” said lead author Michaël Gillon, an exoplanet researcher at the University of Liège in Belgium. “Now we have seven Earth-sized planets to expand our understanding. Yes, we have the possibility to find water and life. But even if we don’t, whatever we find will be super interesting.” Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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About Ken May

Kenneth May is a certified cybersecurity professional. He and his team offer services such as Advanced Vulnerability Assessments, Network Penetration Testing, Web Application Penetration Testing, and a wide array of compliance services covering HIPAA, PCI, and the various NIST & DOD requirements. Ken is a Community mentor for SANS, the largest Cybersecurity certification preparation company in the world, and carries both the GSEC and GPEN (Certified Ethical Hacker and Penetration Tester) certifications. He has recently been accepted into the FBI’s Infragard program, as a recognized protector of critical national infrastructure. This program gives him deep access to information and resources to protect his clients.